I’ve fallen into a Literature-Review shaped hole recently (sorry, readers!) but had a nice break for fresh air and a trip out to a primary school on the edge of Sheffield. I wrote about it for the Archaeology in the City blog – you can read it here!

It was a really fun afternoon, and my pride was only slightly dented by the fact that my colleague’s son’s “MINECRAFT EGYPT” poster* was totally their favourite bit of the activity.

*It was on the wall in our office, and I borrowed it as I thought the kids might like to see it. On a previous visit a few children had drawn parallels between Minescape and landscape archaeology without any prompting, and these kids seemed to be fans (big. fans.) as well.

From October 6, 2015 through October 11, 2015, HEARTS IN RUIN is among the featured novels promoted in an eBook sale by Kobo that allows readers to purchase three eBooks for the price of two on select titles. Kobo calls it a “Buy Two, Get One Free” sale. In essence, you can buy Hearts in Ruin and one other qualifying eBook, and Kobo will let you have an additional free qualifying eBook.

There are a lot of great titles in the promotion, including Tower in the Woods by Tara Quan, Sunburn by Rosanna Leo, Remnants by Betty Bolte, Geek Love and Code Monkey by Mechele Armstrong, Winterfall by Denise A. Agnew and Blackout by Allison B. Hanson,among many others.

National Novel Writing Month is November. The idea is to pound out a 50,000-word novel during that 30-day span. Thousands of writers and aspiring writers participate in the event, including me. Each participant can tell you what they get out of it, and each answer might be different. For me, I get a first draft. Of the six years I’ve participated, each of those six first drafts still exist, and what has come of them varies, from book to book. One of them was polished and published. Another was polished (and polished) and is still looking for a publisher. One is darn near done. The second and third drafts fell apart on me at the end, and I’m now working on an ending that I think sings. Once that ending is done, I’ll be revising the rest of the draft. The two remaining first drafts are just first drafts, and…